Fighting Temptation

Hey, everybody. Welcome back once again to our series, New Normal. So glad to have you here with us this week. Once again, there in your living rooms or wherever you are today, I'm excited to share with you some cool things happening. Here's the first thing I want to share with you, and guys, you're going to be excited about this.

We have signed lease for MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art, so we are ready to move in there. Now here, remember, we're in phases, so here's what's going to happen. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to announce the date now that we are going to have family services or tentatively have our family services start. Father's Day, the 21st of June.

Father's Day, the 21st of June. Get ready. It's going to be a little different. This is a slow move in. We're doing this gradually.

Guys, we won't have children's ministry right away. It'll be a family service. It'll be a little shorter, but we are going to start getting together on that date. For the meantime, we are going to be, as leaders only, be meeting there and setting up on Sundays and getting things ready and gathering around this message and online, live. So we are taking steps towards that.

So if you're a leader, we'll be contacting you if we haven't already, having you come out and train for our new facility. But we're excited to take steps towards being a little bit normal again. Amen? Aren't y'all ready for that? Also, I want you to do this.

Stay tuned till the end of this message. Stay tuned till the end of this message because we've got something very, very special for you. So I'm excited that you're here with us today because God has a word for us. And if you will, we're going to take a look at that scripture that we've hit every week in this series because we're entering into what we call a new normal. That's what a lot of people are talking about.

Some of you have seen a new normal, and especially with the things that have been happening recently, it's been a trying time for a lot of people, a very stressful time. We're already in a crisis now. We are seeing a lot of movement happen in our community, in our black community. Something horrible has happened here recently on the news and in the media. We've learned that George Floyd, a young man, was senselessly murdered by a police officer.

And just a very, very terrible thing. And I shared some things in the middle of the week about it. So I just ask us to pray for our country and pray for what's going on that we would be the church in the middle of this. And I know that there's a lot of different opinions on one side or the other. But I know that it feels a lot different than it did before we went into this.

And some of you are coming out of this and you're still feeling that stress. You thought you were getting through it and it's come back. Maybe you have some anger or maybe you have some frustration or maybe you just don't know. Maybe there's a new sense of of unexpected of what's next. And you're you're really dealing with a lot right now, spiritually, physically, emotionally.

But what I want you to understand is that we have something we can hold on to. And in First Thessalonians, we've been dealing with this and we've been talking about this a different type of new normal. And if we focus on the right kind of normal that we need to be as Christians, we can get through this. God has something special for our lives. He has a purpose for our lives.

He doesn't want us to be in fear. He doesn't want us to operate in anger. He wants us to be fully whole. And this is what he says in First Thessalonians 5, 23, as we've shared with you every week. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through and may your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless.

Isn't that beautiful? Blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So in week one, we talked about the spirit. We talked about getting the spirit right. We've got to be connected to God before we can get anything else right.

In week two, we talked about our emotions, how to anchor our emotions on a firm foundation, a steady rock. Week three, last week, we talked about the body and how we need to be whole in our body and our physical bodies and that our bodies are God's, that we need to first understand the theology that our bodies are not our own. So this week, I want to hit that again, go kind of with part two of the body. We're going to talk about the body once again because I want to be very practical because we dealt with a lot of the spiritual side of it last week and what our bodies mean as it relates to us having a relationship with God. But let's get real practical this week.

I want to talk about temptation, how to avoid temptation, because temptation comes and there's going to be temptation. And often we use these coping mechanisms when we go through stress. Some of you are dealing with that right now. You're finding things to try to temporarily cope your bodies with, your souls and your emotions with. And all of those connect together, right?

And so this week, I want to share with you some very, very practical things. And James, the brother of Jesus, shares with us in chapter one, beginning with verse 13. He says, never blame God when you are tempted because God can't be tempted by evil. We shared that last week. We talked about that a little bit last week.

You can't blame God when you're going, when you're being tempted. A lot of us are like, oh, God made me that way. God doesn't tempt you. He always offers something. Look, look here what it says.

And never, he never tempts anyone to do the wrong thing. We are tempted by our own desires. See, it's not him, it's us. Because we have these, as we talked about last week, we have these bodies of death, you know? And we have these desires in our heart.

That's what drags us in the wrong direction and traps us. Our wrong desires leads us or led us to wrong actions. And those sinful actions eventually end in death. So friends, don't be deceived by every desire that you feel. So you see how the progression takes place.

It starts out with a desire and then we act on the desire. And then ultimately we act, the actions lead to death. So God has not left us powerless. That's what I want you to understand, okay? God offers us a way out.

If you have a sin that you keep coming back to over and over and over again, and you feel helpless, you feel like this desire, I just can't let go of it. Well, God tells us that we can actually have power to overcome these things. Look what he says in 1 John 5, 4 and 5. Everyone who is called a child of God can overcome sin. Please introduce ourselves and give a chief of both doctors for the first generation of In this world, not just on the other side of heaven, but in this world.

What wins the victory is our faith. No one can defeat the world's ways without having faith in Jesus as the Son of God. See, willpower won't do it long term. It really comes from God. We may not be able to be sinless, but we can sin less by God's power.

And we're never going to be perfect on this side of eternity. But we can overcome sin in our life. And that's what I want to help you with today. Let me just offer you here nine practical counter moves, if you want to call them that, that we can have when temptation comes. Again, temptation will come.

The desires will come. How do we attack those things? What are some counter moves we can make? Well, the first one that we can do is know my default coping strategy. You've got to know your default coping strategy.

The thing that causes you to stumble. Where do I stumble? Look at what Hebrews 12 says. We should remove from our lives anything that gets in the way of our spiritual growth, especially those persistent sins that so easily distract. What is a persistent sin that distracts us?

Those things that we're constantly going back to over and over and over and over again that we just can't shake and we make excuses for them because we've never been able to get rid of them. So we see those. He says there's persistent sins that so easily distract. We can remove those things. And that's our coping mechanism, right?

We go back to those things because when we experience stress, when we experience worry or we experience anger, whatever that emotion is, we go directly to those coping mechanisms. Let me just share a few of those that you probably have. One of those might be food, okay? You eat a lot. Maybe you're somebody who eats a lot.

When you're stressed, you eat. When you're worried, you eat. That's your coping mechanism. For some of you, it might be drinking. Maybe you've noticed, man, I drink a lot.

I seem to want to always go to the bottle. And I've had a number of guys and girls actually confess to me, Leon, I might have a drinking problem. I'm thinking back to my week and I've had a drink almost every night and I seem to not be able to get away from it and I feel like I'm drinking too much. Do you think I might have a problem? If you think you have a problem, you may have a problem.

So that's a coping mechanism a lot of people use. Maybe it's sleep. Maybe you can't sleep or maybe you do sleep. You sleep more. It could be shopping.

You go shopping. That's your coping mechanism. Maybe you binge watch TV. I talked about that last week and I got a lot of reactions online for that, right? That hits home.

It may be binge watching. I do that sometimes. I'm kind of a comedy guy. So there's a lot of shows I like and one of them was Kevin James' latest show. Just a couple of nights ago, I was sitting watching that and I was kind of a little depressed because of the news and everything.

So I got some laughter on and I cut on Kevin James' show. And before I knew it, I went through seven episodes. It was like an hour and a half worth of Kevin James. And it just seemed like no time. And I'm thinking to myself, this is great.

And it's okay to watch TV. And there's nothing wrong with watching TV. But man, we could do it too much. I could do that every night and not even think about it, right? And there's more important things we need to be doing besides binge watching TV.

Maybe it's gaming. You're a gamer. It could be drugs. It could be gambling. It may be porn.

It could be over-controlling. You're just over-controlling of everything. That's your coping mechanism. I've got to control it. I've got to control it.

Maybe it's withdrawing that you go away and you don't want to be around anybody. Or maybe it's angry outbursts, whatever it might be. But know your predictable area of fall, okay? Your coping mechanism. You've got to first know that.

Then second, know my emotional trigger. My emotional triggers. What triggers me to enter into that coping mechanism? When that temptation comes to want to go that direction, what kind of emotional trigger happens in my life? What makes you vulnerable to go to that coping strategy?

So what makes me vulnerable is the question you need to ask. Because we all want to change the way we act. But we first of all have to change the way we think. Because when we think about those things and we act on them, then it just becomes that thing that we have that we're dealing with, right? So it really is about changing the way.

It starts with your brain. Your brain. It comes in. So what are those emotional things that you deal with? What are those emotional triggers?

Look what Proverbs 4.23 says. Above all things, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do. Guard your heart. The word heart there just means like we use it today.

It means your soul or your emotions and things that you're invested in. You know, like, oh, my heart is just drawn to this. Or my heart is here or heart is there. It's that thing that you invest into emotionally. And it says, guard your heart.

Guard your heart from those emotional triggers that come in. Those temptations may be, maybe they happen when you're physically exhausted. Maybe that's an emotional trigger. You're physically exhausted. Or you're discouraged.

You're pessimistic. Or you're bored or discontent. You know, you're discontented with things right now. Or you're spiritually dry and you're empty. And that's something that the coping mechanisms want to come in and take over.

Maybe you're lonely or disconnected or you're insecure or you're unsure or you're wounded or hurt. Maybe you're just hurt. And you have that emotional trigger and you're resentful. Maybe you're sad or grieving a loss. A lot of people go to coping mechanisms because they're grieving.

You've got to recognize your emotional triggers. Third, you need to learn the patterns. You've got to learn the pattern. Where am I going? Everybody has a pattern.

It's just like our DNA. It's just like a fingerprint. We all operate in a certain pattern. And if we can recognize the pattern that we go into when that emotional trigger comes, when the coping mechanism presents itself, the temptation, and then the emotional trigger comes, we've got to recognize what patterns lead us into that action. And then we can plan ahead because it's smart to plan.

The plan. Look what it says in Proverbs 4, 14, 8. It says, The wise man looks ahead. It looks ahead. It looks at the pattern, right?

A fool tries to fool himself and won't face facts. So we need to be wise and look ahead. See, foolish people rationalize. They have rational lies. They rationalize everything.

You know, it's okay. This is why. They justify in their minds the reason they're doing that thing. But wise people look ahead and want to be successful. Successful.

So we need to look ahead. So here's a few things you can ask. First of all, ask, When am I most tempted? When am I most tempted? What time of day am I most tempted?

Is it the morning? Is it the afternoon? Is it the evening? What time of day is it? When?

How about where? Where am I most tempted? Am I most tempted at work? Am I most tempted in the kitchen? Am I most tempted in a bar if you have a drinking problem?

Are you finding yourselves in bars? Do you find yourself more tempted at your neighbor's house or in front of a computer? You've got to recognize where, where, and avoid those areas of temptation. And then you ask who? Who is with me when I'm most tempted?

That's a big one. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Is it friends? Is it co-workers? Is it strangers?

Is it when you're alone? I mean, you could be alone and tempted. Maybe you need to be with people. Maybe it's when you're isolated. Who?

Or what? What temporary benefit do I get if I give in? How about that? You know, think about that. The what?

What is it that I'm getting out of this? Some kind of temporary satisfaction? Is it really worth it? That's so important. You know, when we invest into the temptation or we have an action off of that temptation, what is it really going to bring to us?

Is it benefiting us? Or the how? How do I feel right before I'm tempted? You know, that's so important. Am I frustrated?

Am I scared? Am I lonely? When I can't sleep? Am I tempted? How does it happen?

And then the fourth thing we need to look at is plan to avoid those situations. So we've already discovered, you know, we discovered the learning patterns and then, you know, the things that, the situations that we're in. So we plan, right? So how do we avoid those? Look at what Proverbs 4, 26 and 27 says.

Plan carefully what you do. Avoid evil and walk straight ahead. Don't go one step off the right way. So here's the thing. If you're dieting, are you going to go study or do your work at the Krispy Kreme?

Of course you're not. You're on a diet and you're not going to put those temptations in you, right? Or present them before you. You're not going to be in places where you can be tempted. So what are you doing?

Maybe you need to block some television channels. If you know that you have a problem with what you watch and you're not watching good things, maybe you need to block those. If you have a problem, if you're trying to fight pornography, maybe you should have some blocks on your computer. Maybe you should have somebody accountable to. You need to make some steps to be able to block those things in your life that are hurting you.

If you have a drinking problem or you think you may have a drinking problem, it might be wise not to go to a bar. It may be wise not to even live in the area around bars where you're easily tempted. Maybe it's time to make some life changes so that you can get better. Places that don't lead you down the path of that temptation that you're facing. Maybe it's a friend's house that you've been hanging out with and they've been really a bad influence on you and it really leads you down that path of sin because of a temptation.

Whatever it is, we need to avoid the situation. And then fifthly, this is so easy, number five is we need to ask God for help. You know, it's as easy as saying, God, help. I heard it said like this. It's a microwave prayer.

You know, just a quick prayer saying, God, help me when you feel the temptation come. God, help me. Look what Psalm 5015 says, call to me when trouble comes and I will save you. So God is actually telling us to call to him and he will save us if we just say help. So why would we ask God to help?

Because he's sympathetic to us. He knows what we're going through. He knows how to help us and he has the power to help us. I mean, Jesus in Hebrews 5, 15 and 16, it says, understands our weaknesses for he faced the same temptations we do. Jesus faced every, well, I feel like I'm just all alone.

Nobody's ever experienced this, but he did. And it says, yeah, he did not sin. So let us come boldly to our gracious Lord. There will be and there we will receive his mercy and grace to help us when we need it. He was tempted in every way.

He was discouraged. He was tempted with pride. He was tempted with retaliation. He was tempted with sexuality. He was tempted with loneliness, anxiety.

He had it all and he understands and we have a God that relates to us. So call out to God for help. Please call out to God for help and he will help you. Six, we need to refocus our attention on something else. Refocus my attention on something else.

That means just change our thought. Replace it with good. Look what Romans 12, 21 says. Don't let evil conquer you, but conquer evil with good. It means change the way you think.

Stop thinking about that thing and start doing it good. Now, here's the thing. You cannot fight temptation. Temptation will come. And I find it interesting that people try to fight the temptation.

I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm going to get it out of my head. And it just grows and grows and grows and grows. Instead of trying to fight the temptation, I heard it said, if you resist, it persists.

And it does. It just grows. But if you try to fight it, it just won't work. But listen, you can change. The way we resist the devil is that we replace it with good.

That we think good thoughts. That we capture every thought. 2 Corinthians 10, 5 says we capture every thought and we make it obey Christ, right? So we need to change our attention to things. And that might be thinking and it might be doing.

Do something good. There's a lot of things you can get involved in right now. Do something good. Do something good for others. Participate in something you really believe in and you're making a difference and change it.

And it's not easy, but it works with practice. Practice it and change your thoughts. 7. Join. This is just every week.

Y'all know what I'm going to say here. Join a salt group for support. Join a group for support. Let us not give up the habit of meeting together as some of you are doing. Instead, let us encourage each other all the more.

So we really need to connect with people who can help us. And that leads me to number eight. Enlist one friend to share my struggle with. So how do I do that? Well, you can do that through a salt group.

You can connect with people. See, here's the thing. Salt groups are a meeting once a week, but it's more than just a meeting once a week. It's everything that goes around that meeting. It's just like church on Sunday.

We come together, but we scatter about, and we connect during the week, and we minister, and we love one another, and we reach the world together, and we help each other. And if you're going through something emotionally, if you're going through something physically, if you have a physical sin, and you cannot break that sin, you have that stronghold in your life, you need to find a friend. Look what it says in Ecclesiastes 4, 9, and 10. It says two are better than one because together if one falls down, the other can help them up. So let us, but if someone is alone and falls, there's no one to help him.

See, we need each other. We need friends. We need one friend. I encourage you to seek out one friend that you can be with and that can help you. And I'm not talking about an unhealthy friend.

Here's just some quick advice. Find somebody healthy. Find somebody solid. Now, there's peer mentors, and you guys can be at the same place and walk together. But a lot of times when you're in the same place as somebody else, it's harder to receive mentorship because you're both faced with the same challenges, and maybe both of you are unhealthy in some area.

But you need somebody who's healthy and strong, a mentor, somebody who's mature, has wisdom. And some of you guys who are people who can reach out to others and help others because you've got a lot of wisdom and you've learned a lot in this life. You need to step up and be a mentor to somebody. If you have a healthy life and you're not struggling that much, maybe you are. Everybody's struggling in something, I'm sure.

But if you feel like you're at a spiritual level where you can help somebody or you're called to do that, and you've got some wisdom, you're a little older, you've been around a little bit, why don't you offer yourself? There are so many people that mean mentorship, whether it's a woman, a man, or whoever it is. Let's enlist one friend to share your struggles with. You've got to share your struggles. Make a move on.

The only way we're going to be able to break some of these things is to share it with others and have prayer together. It says this in Galatians 6-2, By helping each other with your troubles, you truly obey the law of Christ. So how serious are you about changing? That's the question. How serious are you about changing?

Are you enlisting people to help you? Are you looking for someone to help you through it? Are we willing to be accountable? So many people are not willing to be accountable, so they never change. And then lastly, remember, and this is probably the biggest thing.

Remember that God is on your side. He does not tempt you. As we learned at the beginning, He doesn't tempt you. But He offers a way out. Look at 1 Corinthians 10-13.

When temptation comes into your life, remember that you're no different from any others commonly experienced. Meaning that temptation is nothing new. Everybody faces temptation. If you're like, Oh, I'm the only one that's going through this. It's just not true.

There's others going through it. And it says, And God is faithful. He will never let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. And when you are tempted, He will show you a way out. Do you believe that?

So that you will be able to withstand it. See, God... James 1-12 says, God blesses people who continue strong. When they are tempted, they will receive... And look at this.

They will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him. He's with you. He's for you. And you have Him available to you if you are a believer today. All you have to do is call out to Him for help.

And He is there. And He is for you. He is on your side. I promise you that. You've got to believe that.

You've got to trust in Him. And for some of you, maybe that's not a reality. Maybe for somebody here watching today, maybe you've never had a relationship with Christ. For some others of you, you had a relationship with Christ. But you've fallen away maybe because of some sin that kept coming back into your life that separated you from God.

Or maybe it was something else. Whatever it is that separated you from God, you can recommit your life to Christ. Commit and recommit your life to Christ today. You can do that. Right where you are, you can make a decision for Jesus.

And He can be there to help you. I struggle, Pastor. I struggle so much. And I feel like sin is invading my life. But I can tell you that you could be rescued right now from that.

You can begin the path to spiritual maturity right now. And it starts with confessing your sin to God. It starts with confessing your sin to God. Right there where you are. You don't have to do it at a pulpit.

You don't have to do it in front of the church. You can just do it wherever you are. On a street corner, in your living room, in a restaurant, out at the beach. It doesn't matter. Wherever you're watching that, just listen to me.

I plead with you that Jesus wants a relationship with you. And that will change everything. So how do I do that, Pastor? What do I do? Well, you just simply commit to Him.

Just confess your sin to Him. Believe that He is the Son of God. Believe that He died on the cross for your sins. And that He wants to come and live in you. And you invite Him in to live with you.

And if you will just pray that with me. Lord Jesus, in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, I'm just asking right now, in the name of Jesus. Jesus, I am a sinner. I'm short of your glory. I fall short of your glory.

But you say, he who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So today, I give my life to you. Come and save me, Lord. Come into my heart. Forgive me of my sin.

Make me new. Change me from the inside out. I'm yours today, Lord. I'm yours forever. I give my life to you.

In Jesus' name, amen. If you gave your life to Christ, we're so thankful. We want you to connect with us. You can connect with us right on our app. You can connect with us online.

You can connect with us at the website. We want to know that you gave your life to Christ. Because we want to help you begin this journey to living sinless. Not sinless, but sinless. And I promise you, God's got some hope for you.

You've started. You've taken the very first step. And God's going to do something amazing in your life. Amen. Let's just celebrate God.

Just celebrate God right where you are. Amen. Thank you so much for being with us here today. . .

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